Advancements in the field of computer science and information technology have led to the usage of computer assisted assessment (CAA) as one of the popular modes for evaluating responses for one or more questions. Such one or more questions may correspond to various categories. One of such categories of questions corresponds to multiple choice questions (MCQs) for which the responses are from limited choices. Other of such categories of questions corresponds to open-ended questions for which the responses are in free-text.
Typically, for multiple choice questions (MCQs), a user provides constrained responses. Thus, such assessment may not be reliable as the responses may be based on guess work. Further, presence of alternative responses providing inadvertent hints may change nature of problem-solving and reasoning skills of the candidate. Furthermore, acquired knowledge of the candidate may not be appropriately measured due to hypothetical reasoning and self-explanation, specifically in science courses. On the other hand, for open-ended questions, the user may integrate, synthesize, design, and communicate the ideas in natural language. Thus, such free-text responses provided by different users may be different for the same question. The difference in responses may occur due to linguistic variations in responses (i.e., multiple ways of expressing the same response), subjectivity of question (i.e., multiple correct responses) and topical variation (i.e., science vs literature) with respect to various factors, such as, subject matter, level of students, length and type of text. Usually, the CAA technique developed for evaluation of the free-text responses works for certain scenarios (i.e., for certain datasets) without considering the above mentioned variations. Therefore, an improved CAA technique for evaluation of the free-text responses with enhanced quality and accuracy is desirable.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of skilled in the art through a comparison of the described systems with some aspects of the present disclosure, as set forth in the remainder of the present application and with reference to the drawings.